One of the most important events on my annual professional calendar is the Orange Conference.

Why Orange? In sum, when it comes to a student ministry curriculum, I have not found one as powerful, versatile, comprehensive, and intentional as Orange. It cares for the middle school student just as much as the elderly aunt who takes care of him. Orange seeks to equip the entire family, not just the teenage kid, for both individual and familial faith. That simple.

As a user since 2011, I've continually been sold by how well it prepares me to share the Gospel with teenagers and build parent partnerships for faithful ministry in the home.

Not long ago my wife introduced me to the best show on television... Chopped. I love it. Hands down noting beats it. A simple show in concept: four chefs compete against one another using a basket of mystery ingredients - yet so captivating!

Why? Because the ingredients equalize the playing field. Whether the chef be a novice out of culinary a school or a multi-restaurant owner veteran, each chef receives the ingredients at the same time and must respond to them.

The ingredients are the star of the show. They call out the character of the chef. Not the other way around. It's the ingredients that define the path.

Said C.S. Lewis, "The prayer that precedes all prayers is may the real me meet the real you."

A great friend of mine from college once shared this quote with me. He and I served in Young Life together, leading high school students toward a growing relationship with Jesus. I can recall that he ended nearly every one of his ministry talks with this quote just prior to closing in prayer:

"May the real me meet the real you."

I probably listened to him share this quote with me dozens of times. I think I also used it. But quite honestly, I don't think I understood the meaning behind it until much later in life. Intellectually I understood it. It's simple in structure, but truly profound in its meaning.

Perhaps I missed it time after time because inherent within this quote lays an assumption that you know the real you.

To wrap up Orange Blogger Week, I want to share with you why I continue to choose the Orange philosophy and curriculum, even while so many other organizations improve each year on curriculum writing and production.

Over the years, I have written quite a bit about Orange on my blog, and you can view every single article on my Archives Page under the Orange heading. Every time I write about Orange, I realize even more why I value this organization. It is a unique one in several ways, but I want to highlight 6 reasons in particular that feature the hallmarks of the organization. They follow:

Ever receive one of the billion Internet memes floating in cyberspace? Ever let out a sigh when you receive a text from that kid, open it, and discover that you just got meme’d by an angry cat or a one second repeating loop from a 1960s sitcom? Of course you have, because you serve as a family ministry leader! Another phrase for “family ministry leadership” should be “meme receptor.” We serve a generation who loves making, finding, and sending memes, especially to us!

Just in case you might be the only person who reads this post and thinks, “Hmmm, what’s a meme?” Let me bring you up to speed: a meme is a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.

Sophomore Year… High School… Camp Cowen… As I did every year, I sat next to my camp girl friend… because after all, doesn’t every freshman boy go to camp for the ladies? I listened to a speaker named Rob Ely talk about why Jesus should matter to me… a popular, All-American kid with a bright future and a clean record. He spoke about this God who rescued every one of us through the person of Jesus. He spoke about the love and unmerited, undeserved grace of Jesus for the ENTIRE world - all for the sake of restoring every person… as his beloved!

As Rob spoke that night, I felt something strange begin to happen. I let go of my camp girlfriend’s hand. Scenes of my life began to rerun in my mind, but rather than disregarding them, I decided to feel them.

On that night, the very hearing of being called a beloved child of God so moved my heart and renewed my weary soul that I did not care so much about the girl sitting next to me or the buddies from my cabin when I got up, walked to Rob, and accepted the love of Jesus for me.

The words ‘fun’ and ‘church staff’ often seem more like oxymorons than necessary partners. In fact, even as I write this, I just finished a staff meeting. Fun is not the word I would use to describe it.

And perhaps rightly so.

Church staffs need structured, time-bounded meetings to discuss and critically engage with the necessary issues pertinent to ministry. Various seasons in the year call for team members to discuss hard conversations, make tough decisions, disagree with one another, and maintain deadlines. Not fun things to do, but very necessary things to do. The health and growth of every ministry organization depends on these kinds of meetings.

I think most of us would agree that as kids, the stories from the Old Testament scared us! At least they did for me! Reading those ancient, historic tales kept me up at night. They juiced my imagination and instilled the fear of God in me... literally! In fact, they shaped me into the man and Pastor I am today.

One story in particular stayed with me. It is so familiar that you might know it yourself: Exodus 20 - the Ten Commandments! Now, you might be thinking that this story does not consist of the battle scenes and death blows like some of the other passages in Exodus. True, but God says something here that frightened me as a kid, and if I am honest, still frightens me today. The author writes in verses 4-5:

Because each phase of adolescence needs a strong, faithful, and equipped man or woman of God to lead, encourage, and challenge them through that phase.

Strong and effective leaders and ministers know this single truth that the difference between a good and great ministry is one single factor: the level of preparation for that leader. That's it! Good looks, charm, wit, personal knowledge, and abilities can only take a leader so far - sometimes very far - before that leader bumps against a wall... a wall comprised of her or himself.

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Mr. and Mrs. Claus… Love these two with all of my heart. So grateful for my family. So grateful for the Prince of Peace. So grateful for Christmas, for the moment when God entered into our world to save us from our sin. #myreedfamilylove #peace

Love serving alongside this powerhouse duo! #Repost @findthy.fire with @repostapp
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@christjourney has given me so much, it's only fitting to jump in with #CJMerryMonday ❤